The reliance on religion, family, and tradition in Middle Eastern culture reveals the ephemeral, individualistic entertainment culture of the United States for the Vanity Fair that it is. Being on sabbatical in Jerusalem for two months has brought about two important perspectives shedding light on Middle Eastern culture and therefore on the culture in the [...]
It is not fair or accurate to describe the struggle between the two warring parties in Ukraine as religious, except in the decidedly irreligious sense of its being a sectarian struggle in which religious affiliation is little more than a badge worn in the service of tribalism. A couple of nights ago, I found myself [...]
Franklin Pierce’s suspicions reflected a tension within the antebellum Democratic Party in relation to slavery—how can we reconcile an advocacy of democratic decision-making with the existence of transcendent moral values, the Constitution with the Bible? On the stump in New Boston, New Hampshire in early January 1852, Franklin Pierce gave a long oration during which [...]
Indifferentism in religion only serves to weaken all religion, for when the dogma and the distinctive devotions go, all we are left with is a kind of vanilla-pudding spirituality. In his recent book The Return of the Strong Gods, Rusty Reno catalogues the concerted effort, after the Second World War, of philosophers, political thinkers, economists, and theologians [...]
Spinoza has appeared to build upon the edifice of the ancients and the medieval scholastics, but he has actually taken the floor out from under us, so that “God” and “man” no longer mean quite what they did. A wise man has written a book called God or Nothing—the title a profoundly pithy expression of [...]
For all intents and purposes, Russell Kirk became Russell Kirk the day he realized that there was no need to fear death. Every once in a while, someone online—being either sincere or sincerely mischievous—loves to ask about the status of unrecognized saints. Who is the person most likely to be saint that the church has [...]
Without a deep religious faith, Whittaker Chambers could hardly have made his stand against Communism and, in fact, almost failed to do so. “The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great.” —Stepan Trofimvovitch, in The Possessed, by Fyodor Dostoevsky Whittaker Chambers’ Witness is the [...]
I found in theology something missing from philosophy as I experienced it—the undergirding of a received and popular body of knowledge found in scripture and religious tradition. Theology is a mansion with many rooms and has something to say to every aspect of the human condition. As “discourse about God,” “reasoning about God,” or “the [...]
Each great teacher locates the fundamental problem of human living differently: The Buddha cites suffering; Socrates points to ignorance; and Jesus identifies faulty love. In addition, all three Masters teach that the task set for each human soul is to travel from illusion to reality. Unlike the Age of Faith, in Postmodernity, or more accurately [...]
René Girard was a polymath—not only writing on literature, but bringing his theory to bear on anthropology, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and theology. While I greatly admire his work, I would presume to pick a bone with his thought on sacrificial systems in religion. René Girard I was first introduced to the French thinker [...]
The theological study, “The Ascension of Christ,” shows us why the ascension is an important and necessary mystery of Christianity: It is the link between Christ’s resurrection and his second coming. It marked a new beginning, opened a new era, and drove the future course of history. The Ascension of Christ: Recovering a Neglected Doctrine, [...]
Politics, we are always to remind ourselves, is not God; to pretend otherwise is an affront to God. Nevertheless, politics may prove helpful in making it easier for us to get to God. Especially these days when it becomes more urgent than ever to remind the state of those things it may not do to [...]
To believe that a certain athlete, musician, artist, political leader, or writer is not just “great” but “the greatest of all time” is to give undue weight to our time and to our own experience. It also unnecessarily forecloses our imaginative horizons that something or someone can indeed come along and surpass what we may [...]
The authentic definition of “ecumenical” has nothing to do with the modern understanding of “ecumenism,” which appears to be the willingness to dilute or delete doctrine in pursuit of a perceived unity among disparate groups of believers. Being ecumenical is being evangelical, whereas the new-fangled word ecumenism is the failure to evangelize. It is important [...]